Stargate Atlantis:
Miles Above Us
The Forever Burn
Chapter 1:
Part I:
What to reflect on? How much more could they have done? Maybe They were just to late… I cannot think right. I feel as if my brain is about to bust. I can't say that I am not mad. But I knew what I signed up for when I went to Atlantis. Things were going to get bad, and in some cases men, women, the brave people of this mission would sometimes not come back. Thing is, never thought I would be one of those. See, my whole life, I was the one who came back, made it out. The tour I did in Iraq. Being shot at, was never an issue. Bullets seem to just go past me. I was the "lucky" one.
Where was my luck on this one… I suppose it just ran out. Sgt. Arthur Michael Turner's luck had run out.
It had only been about four weeks since I had started active duty on Atlantis. It was my second mission, and we were heading for a planet for some biological samples that Dr. Beckett needed for his research on… well something or other. I was not really big on the whole research aspect of the missions. Don't get me wrong, I liked the whole idea of finding new or lost discoveries.
I just liked the whole action and adventure part of the job. Needless to say I did not become one of the few Army units on Atlantis for the research.
The mission started out well enough. From what I could tell, just a routine job, Myself, Jacob, Shrin, a soldier that was from the same planet as Teyla , Marcus, and Maj. Paul Franks, our commanding officer. There were also scientist, but for the life of Me, I cannot remember.
The planet was lush, plenty of trees, much like a rainforest back on earth. After arriving through the gate, we were to go ten klicks to the south, retrieve the samples and go back to the gate.. Couldn't be more simple, could it? Wrong. About half way to the selected mission site, one of the science officers started picking up what he called weird energy readings. Of course, protocol says we must investigate, or make note of it, and then we would not get the chance to investigate and someone else would take it and get all the fun out of being with the Stargate program. So with that said, we weren't about to give anyone else a chance to take away a major discovery from us.
We must have walked around that freaking jungle for hours, and soon the day turned into night. All of our equipment was or seemed to be malfunctioning. We were lost. The c.o. decided to call it a night and build camp, by that time, we could not even find the gate, it seemed as if the forest changed around us, every step we took, the step behind us had changed. Camp would be nice, give us a chance to rest our dogs, catch some much needed shut eye, and wait for Stargate Command to make their routine radio checkup.
I must have fallen asleep first. I had not been getting much sleep since coming to Atlantis, always used to the field gear and bedding, guess it would have only been a matter of time before I became used to sleeping in a real bed again. But sleeping outside again came as a relief to me. I finally awoke, and to my surprise, it was 0300, Stargate Command surely should have radioed in by then. I rolled over and saw my C.O. sitting on a fallen tree with his back turned to the camp. I scanned the area, checking my surroundings, everyone else was asleep, except for one of the scientist was missing from my field of vision. I got to my feet, dusted myself off, packed my rifle on my back and walked over to Franks, and sat beside him. Before I could say anything he said "One of the scientist took off in that direction about an hour ago, and something is out there, but it is not him." I could hear something, but it sounded small, no bigger than a common dog. I stood up to go search for the scientist, and Franks immediately told me to sit back down. That was an order, and there was no reason for another person to become lost in the forest, and that we would mount a search party first light, and for me to go back to sleep, that I would need my sleep for morning. I asked him about the radio from command. Nothing. We should have been contacted by then, something was not right.